Remote singing

This page explains what you will need to participate in a remote singing session.

Setup

Equipment

Item	Ideal	Alternative	Notes
Computer	Dedicated laptop or desktop	smartphone
Microphone (“mic”)	External plug-in mic (USB or standard 3.5mm jack)	Use built-in mic on computer / phone	A good quality external mic is going to provide superior sound input.
Headphones	Pair of “over the ear” headphones (USB or standard 3.5mm jack)	“in the ear” headphones / buds	Required to minimise background noise and hear the rest of the singers as clearly as possible.
Network connection	Ethernet cable	wifi!	Most routers / wifi hubs have one or more Ethernet sockets on the back. Having a wired connection between your computer and the router provides a more reliable and generally faster link to the internet.

Software

• Register for the free JamKazam service.
• Download the free JamKazam application for Windows or MacOS.

Initial setup

• Plugin your headphones and microphone.
• Start the JamKazam application and login.
• Click the menu button next to your name (top right).
• Click “Audio Gear” and follow the instructions to “Add new gear”.
• Click the menu button again.

• Click “Test Network”, then “Start network test”.

  Note:

  Unfortunately, this facility seems somewhat unreliable as sometimes it reports, “No network test servers are available”.

Singing session

Before joining a session

Check the following:

• Ideally, no other applications or apps are running on your device

  So close down your web browser, mail client, games, etc.

  Note:

  This includes things like system updates which can really slow down the system and use up your network bandwidth. Consider applying updates a few hours before the meeting and rebooting after the updates complete.

• Your microphone and headphones are plugged in and working.

On joining a session

• Ensure that once you have joined you:

  • Turn audio on

  • Turn video off

    Sending and recieving video takes up a lot of “bandwidth” and will potentially introduce delays/lag/latency which we need to avoid.

• We may want to record the session.

After the session

Ask the singers for their view on:

• Audio quality?
• Any noticeable delays?
• Any other thoughts / improvements?

Appendices

Software Options

Application	Audio codec	Duplex comms?	Public servers?	Private server possible?	Viable?	Notes
JackTrip	custom?	Yes	No	Yes	No	Setup too complex for most.
JamKazam	Opus	Yes	Yes	No	possible	Free service, but unknown how reliable it is. Servers currently very busy / overloaded.
Jamulus	Opus	Yes	Yes	Yes	possible	Would require us to run our own dedicated private server.
Jitsi	Opus	No	Yes	Yes	No	No sign up or account required - just create/join a session!
Ninjam	OGG Vorbis	Yes	Yes	Yes	maybe	Warning: Public servers appear to auto-upload all recordings to https://archive.org! It could run on a dedicated private server though.
WhatsApp video	Opus	No	Yes	No	No
Zoom	Opus	No	Yes	No	No

Notes:

• Opus is the de facto and best audio codec available for encoding voice data.
• OGG Vorbis is another (general purpose) excellent codec.
• Duplex communications (similar to “polyphony”) are required to allow all singers to be heard by each other at the same time
  (as opposed to simplex where only one person can talk/sing at any one time).